


syncopation

by mdmaverickk



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Dancing, F/F, Introspection, Light Angst, Momo-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-10 19:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13508184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mdmaverickk/pseuds/mdmaverickk
Summary: Momo is a dancer. Supposedly.She watches herself dance, and hates what she sees.





	syncopation

**Author's Note:**

> The song that Mina plays for the freestyle scene is ‘Darkest Hour’, by Lyves. 
> 
> Also, I know that dance vernacular is something that varies very greatly around the world. Unfortunately, I will never know the terminology that they use in Seoul, so the words used in this are very North American-centric.

 

There’s an instinctive sort of fight or flight response that kicks in when you watch a playback of yourself.

 

It’s important to analyze and learn from your mistakes, she knows this as much. But unlike Mina, who conducts post-mortems of her performances with almost clinical precision and dissociation, Momo has to fight back the bile in her throat when she sees herself on a tiny screen.

 

Case in point: Mina was currently enraptured by their latest rehearsal video, eyes boring holes into her phone as she dissected her every move. Mina has her back to the mirror, and the miniature version of herself in the reflection is all Momo needs to feel the onset of dread.

 

She watches herself tense up her shoulders and her core at all the wrong moments, cutting off her extensions and fumbling through the transitions. There’s a break in the flow here, a stumble in a pose there. A poorly executed leap. An off-balanced turn. She knows that no matter how hard she pushes and tries, she remains trapped by the physical limitations of her body, lacking the strength, control, flexibility, and skill to accomplish what she sets her mind to do.

 

Not good enough, the voice in her head says. Weak. Messy. Flimsy.

 

She hates it. Hates herself.

 

Momo fights the urge to run out of the room screaming, and chooses instead to flop herself onto the floor in a rather unceremonious heap.

 

“Am I really a dancer?”

 

Mina gives her a look that’s somewhere along the spectrum of deep concern and outright bafflement.

 

“What on earth have you been doing for the last eighteen years of your life?”

 

“I didn’t ask for your sass, Myoui.”

 

Mina chuckles, but stays her tongue.

 

It’s fitting that they’re having this conversation in the studio, of all places. Momo has a bit of a love-hate relationship with the space, filled with lingering notions of youthful nostalgia and crippling self-doubt, in equal measure.

 

“I feel so,” Momo pauses to gesticulate wildly, a physical representation of her present state of mind. “Inadequate. I’ve been dancing my whole life, but I have hardly anything to show for it. How am I supposed to be be the team’s representative for dance, when I’m not even close to holding a candle to any other dancer out there? I’m not strong enough, not clean enough, not creative enough. It’s kind of shameful, really.”

 

Momo huffs. In the lull of her tirade, she is suddenly aware of Mina watching her with a silent but critical eye, peeling back her insecurities with the same sort of rapt attention she devotes to those videos of herself. It overwhelms her with a deep-seated sense of vulnerability.

 

She absently wonders if the other girls have noticed it too. Maybe that was why they heaped praise on her for adding to the overall performance level of the team. Sometimes, they feel like empty platitudes, because she can’t imagine what they could possibly see in her.

 

Her train of thought is broken by an insistent tugging at her hand, Mina yanking her to her feet. “Stand up,” she instructs, with a no-nonsense tone reminiscent of the dance teachers Momo had growing up. She knows better than to interrupt.

 

Mina guides her by the hips, standing her in the center of the room before moving off into the corner. A quiet song starts trickling through the speakers, one that Momo recognizes from a playlist Mina had titled ‘ _expressions of melancholy_ ’, or something that was similarly, endearingly pretentious. She blinks, and the lights are off, a remnant glow filtering through the glass door of the studio from the hallway beyond. It illuminates Mina’s frame, tracing her soft curves and fine edges in ethereal, gossamer strokes. Her silhouette is lithe, petite, toned, everything a dancer is idealized to be.

 

Mina is perfect. Momo feels unworthy.

 

Hands return to her hips, creeping beneath her shirt and onto the small of her back. Momo instinctively raises her arms to wrap around the other girl’s shoulders, and when delicate lips press into her own, she sighs.

 

“When was the last time you danced for yourself?”

 

Momo can make out the faint traces of a smile as Mina pulled away.

 

“Just relax. Close your eyes, and feel.”

 

It’s a little silly at first. The stiffness is evident in her fledgling attempts, as she awkwardly shuffled from side to side. But the girl before her is fluid, mercurial in her technique, with the most serene look on her face as she danced. Momo wants to join her.

 

So closes her eyes, and feels. The rhythm resonates in her, bass thrumming through her ribs, propelling her to move. And move she does, falling back into a body roll, articulating the motion of each individual section. She draws her textures from the musicality, tensing on the snares and milking it out on the keys. Catch and release, hit and rebound. Five, six, seven, eight, breathe.

 

It’s difficult, when she’s freestyling for the camera. She’s an _idol_. Society has a very specific set of standards and expectations for people like her, particularly when it comes to those of the female variety. There were no power moves in her vocabulary, and grooving was never an effective crowd pleaser. There was really only one other acceptable form that her dancing could take.

 

Be sexy, her trainers had said. People will lap it up.

 

Was it so wrong, that she was just trying to do her job?

 

But it’s different in the darkness, away from the scrutiny of her trainers, her company, her fans, her naysayers. Nothing standing between her and the music, and no one but Mina to judge her. Here, she feels, and moves as she wishes. She is free.

 

The song peters out, and her movements still with it. There is a strange sort of emotion welling in her chest, somewhere between elation, relief, and peace. Momo blinks as she raises her head, and there Mina was, watching her with what looked like stars in her eyes.

 

“That was beautiful,” she sounded breathless with awe. “You’re beautiful.”

 

For once, Momo believes her.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone wants to talk shop about dance, hmu @mdmaverickk on twt!!


End file.
